Presentation during the 14th Association of African Universities (AAU) Conference and African Open Science Platform (AOSP)/Research Data Alliance (RDA) Workshop in Accra, Ghana, 7-8 June 2017.

1. CAPACITY BUILDING FOR OPEN SCIENCE DATA
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
REQUIRED INITIATIVES FOR ENHANCING CAPACITY
IN OPEN SCIENCE DATA IN TANZANIA

2. 1. INTRODUCTION
• Since the 1980s, a majority of national Governments (in
developing countries) and international development partners
and donors assigned higher education a relatively low priority.
• The neglect was based on a narrow and misleading economic
analysis which advocated that public investment in universities
and colleges brought meager returns compared to investment
in primary and secondary schools,
• This attitude led to chronic underfunding of HE but at the
same time HE institutions faced escalating demand
• However, over the last 2 decades, there has been a shift in
paradigm of neglect of Higher Education. Consequently Higher
Education in Sub-Saharan Africa has generally been in a
dynamic state
• Consequently, HE systems in our countries has grown from
only one institution of higher education at (e.g. Tanzania -1961)
to many more training institutions.

3. 2. MAIN KEY ISSUES OF UNIVERSITY AND
HE
Main key issues largely resolve around:
(i) Financing Higher Education,
(ii) Expansion and accessibility,
(iii) Quality assurance and relevance,
(iv) Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
(v) Building a skilled human capital, and (vi) Research.

4. 3. TRAINING INITIATIVES IN RESEARCH MANAGEMENT IN
TANZANIA
• There are many training initiatives today to teach
researchers and postgraduate students critical research
skills such as data analysis, cloud-computing, statistics,
and programming
• Researchers (both staff and postgraduate students)
participate in workshops and have access to online
training and resources
• There is a reasonable access to infrastructure such as
computers, internet, and relevant software packages for
the current situation!

5. 4. WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS?
(a) Research Data skills
• There are hundreds of thousands of free data sets
available worldwide, ready to be used and analyzed by
anyone willing to look for them.
• For example, the world’s largest archive of weather
(environmental, meteorological and climate) data sets is
found at the US National Climatic Data Center
( http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/quick-links#loc-
clim).
• Research data skills (data acquisition, analysis, presentation
and management,,) are not mainstreamed in
undergraduate and postgraduate studies
(b) Open source data analysis software
• There are many open source data analysis software, but
most researchers are not aware of their availability
(c) Data and Information storage technology

6. 4. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
(a) Research Data skills
Research data mining, analysis and presentation and
management should be mainstreamed in curriculum
(b) Researchers should be trained to use Open source
data analysis software
(c) Capacity-building initiatives can require long-term
continuous learning
(d) Partnerships - institutional, regional, national and
international support structures

8. 5. CONCLUSION?
We need to build competencies and technological
capacity of university teaching staff, enhance
knowledge and skills in open data digital infrastructure
in higher education, and improve teaching methods
and technologies to better serve Higher Education
stakeholders